Miranda Guse

Education and Outreach Coordinator
Email: miranda.guse@ufl.edu

Miranda Guse is one of the  Education and Outreach Coordinators for the McGuire Center of Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. She is a senior at the University of Florida studying biology who has long had a passion for conservation and research. By channeling these interests into the realm of scientific communication, she hopes to help educate people about the wonderful world of Lepidoptera!

Andrew Hong

Lab assistant
Email: jioh.hong@ufl.edu

Nothing gets me excited like Lepidoptera. I’ve raised, pinned, and studied hundreds of them, especially the giant silkmoths. When I was three, my parents took me to the Butterfly Rainforest which triggered a passion that continues to this day. I now rear caterpillars in this lab and carry out silk gland dissections to get a better understanding of these winged beauties.

Kaylie Johnson

Education and Outreach Coordinator
Email: kayliejohnson@ufl.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylie-johnson-352x/

Kaylie “Kay” Johnson is a student studying public health at the University of Florida, minoring in Spanish and entomology. She possesses a deep interest in how environmental and ecological factors shape human health. Her current research includes investigating Neotropical butterfly systematics for the Memphis acidalia species complex at the McGuire Center and working in a biomedical informatics lab, investigating pregnancy-associated cancer via computational analyses. Her systematics research is funded through the University Scholars Program and previously the Emerging Scholars Program. In addition to being a full-time student involved with research in two labs, she works as a Student Assistant at the McGuire Center, focusing on outreach and education efforts. As a result of her experiences in these spheres, she is particularly drawn to issues at the intersection of entomology, public health, and environmental health.

David Plotkin